Hiya,
Sometimes good things happen to bad people, and sometimes the reverse. Check this out.
I’m back on my mountain kick again. I’d been rather nervously looking into the possibilities of climbing Hakusan for a while. It’s the highest and holiest mountain of central Japan. You could probably call it the hub of Japan and in former centuries it was regarded with that sort of veneration. Strangely enough Fuji, despite it’s beauty was never so highly regarded. Mountains play a very particular role in the Japanese consciousness; the terrain is very clearly delineated – flat land, intensively cultivated and built on, and mountains, forested, steep and inaccessible. Even to this day, the bulk of the Japanese landmass, folded into steep slopes and cliffs, sees nothing of humanity. By contrast, some of the most intensively built up land on earth can be just a kilometre or two away. And now, it really is incredibly built-up. From Tokyo in the east to Osaka and Kyoto in the west, when you take the train – perhaps a two hundred and fifty mile journey – the development never stops; it’s effectively one city right the way through. But city development doesn’t get within fifty miles of Hakusan. It’s in it’s own steep and wild national park.
You can get a sense of the power and popularity of Hakusan from the way that almost every town has its Hakusan Jinja – its Hakusan shrine. Zen monks and the Yamabushi, Japan’s mountain ascetics, have a particularly strong association with the mountain. The thing is, modern accounts of climbing the mountain seem to dwell more strongly on the vicious weather conditions and treacherous paths than anything else. The mountain is snow covered most of the year – hence the name, White Mountain (with a strong connotation of purity), and is only officially open in July and August.
So here we are, a bit late in the year, already past mid-September. The daft urge to get up there had been slowly growing, but I’m starting to wonder whether it may have to wait a year. Almost out of the blue I get a day off – I’m not expected in the temple. I hurriedly trawl through the internet – not much information, a couple of rather lugubrious accounts of battling up to the summit and staying in an over-priced and dispiriting mountain hut en route. No maps. Also, the most popular way up the mountain is from Ishikawa ken the other side to me. I’m coming from Gifu-ken. So I’ve effectively got one piece of information – my road atlas shows a tiny road in to the base of the mountain from my side. It ends at a lake. That’s all I know. Either I get up there and follow my nose or I leave it for another year. I won’t get another opportunity around now.
I decide to go for it.
Right now I’m really really tired. The traditions don’t tell you that spiritual practice is mostly carried out in a fog of exhaustion, but I can tell you for a fact that that’s the way it tends to be. So I’m knackered, nervous and without even a map and I’m just about to climb the highest mountain in central Japan? Yup.
I got out of the temple (with a car) and drove about half way there. I was so tired I had to stop and sleep for an hour or so, and shop for some provisions – yoghurt, nuts, raw cabbage and carrots. I was tired but still couldn’t forget the time – it’s dark at six thirty now. If I was even going to have a chance at this, I needed light. As I drove up through little ski towns, some with traditional gassho zukkuri houses – thatched roofs of incredible steepness so the snow can’t settle (gassho zukkuri literally means “hands in prayer), I reckoned up my chances. The weather forecast was good – 20% chance of precipitation, although I know that doesn’t count for much in the mountains. Last night was the beautiful harvest full moon, making today the first day of autumn with, if there was a clear sky some illumination to help the trip. No automatic stop signs yet! I turned off onto the tiny mountain road that led to a lake – the nearest point to the peak on my side. Even for Japan – a country of narrow roads, this one was tight, winding along the base of a cliff with seemingly endless blind corners. I curved past a dam, crossed a bridge the car engine straining as we climbed higher. Then it dropped again down to a small carpark beside the lake. There were a few signboards dotted around, but no obvious trailhead. Guessing, I walked back up the road a little way. There it was, tucked into the trees, a rough and battered Shrine gateway with the Chinese characters for white and mountain carved into it. I stepped through and onto holy ground.
The path climbed steeply up the flank of a heavily wooded slope. It had been heavily washed out by repeated rains. I had no time to waste and within minutes my heart was banging around like a tin drum in the hands of a kid who’s been on the orange squash. I climbed higher, looking out over broad steep valleys. I seemed to have the whole vast landscape to myself. My clothes were soon soaked in sweat and, although I rested a little bit, I wouldn’t allow myself to sit down. An hour and a half or so up the trail I hit a summit with a solidly built mountain hut tucked in behind it. To my surprise it was unlocked. There was nothing inside but a sweeping broom and a 2004 copy of Playboy (Japanese edition). Surprisingly it was mostly about formula one racing and a multi-page survey of the world’s cigarillos. Perhaps the world’s playboys have transcended the desire for pretty girls. It’s an educated guess, but I reckon the vast majority of the world’s monks have transcended the desire for cigarillos.
I pushed on with the possibility forming that I could sleep in the hut on the way back down. The path dipped a little and then started climbing hard. In places it was cut into steps up to a foot high. I was on a ridgeback with long forested views to left and right. “Even if I get no further,” I thought, “It’s been worth it for this.”
The trees got smaller and finally dwindled down to scrub and grass. The sky was pretty clear and, although I was pretty high now, there wasn’t much wind. I was really hurting and running with sweat but it just didn’t feel safe to sit down. The most I allowed myself was a few quick halts to allow my heart rate to drop down to somewhere near normal. It’s hard to explain but within all this I was really re-charging on a spiritual level. Hakusan is a special place.
I reached a broad alpine meadow and caught sight of the infamous Murato mountain hut – over-priced and uninspiring seemed to be the general verdict. I skirted round and hit the steepness again for the final kilometre.
My legs were shaking and I couldn’t move without groaning, but I made my bows at the shrine on the summit just as the sun sank into an incredible ocean of cloud pierced by other mountain peaks. Oh, and you might find that there’s a sudden surge in your levels of health, happiness and all round success. Prayers made at the mountain shrine are reputed to be very effective and, of course, you were included.
Matane Daizan